Boulder has pumped millions of gallons of potable water into Thunderbird Lake to maintain water levels there since launching a pilot program in 2009.

Now, city officials are reconsidering the future of the manmade lake located in Admiral Burke Park in the Frasier Meadows neighborhood, southwest of Baseline Road and Foothills Parkway.

The city's Parks and Recreation Department wants to keep putting water into the lake until at least 2013, while looking for a "sustainable approach" for the future.

Parks Director Kirk Kincannon said the most likely solution will be planting vegetation that is adapted to an intermittent wetlands environment.

"It's looking at what we have in the natural elements and what could we have without any manmade areas and what could we have that the community would still enjoy," he said.

The Boulder City Council will discuss the future of the lake at its meeting Tuesday night.

City officials said they believe the lake was first created when the area was still a farm, perhaps as a cow pond, but longtime residents of Frasier Meadows said the lake was created when the surrounding land was drained for residential development.

Advertisement

Regardless, the lake, which once contained clear water and allowed for fishing, began to dry up in 2001 and 2002. Algae bloomed, fish died and the remaining wetland smelled awful.

The lake appears to be the victim of falling water table levels throughout the area as well as drought conditions, officials said. The water table is now well below the drain tiles that previously fed the lake.

After lobbying by neighborhood residents, the city agreed to replenish the lake with water from the city's supply.

Jeff Arthur, director of public works for utilities, said using treated wastewater was not an option because downstream users have rights to that water and it needs to be returned to Boulder Creek.

The city also doesn't have an infrastructure to deliver "raw water" to the lake.

In planning the pilot program, officials budgeted 1.3 million gallons of water a year. It's ended up taking far more water than that to maintain a lake surface area of roughly 2.2 acres. The city put 1.9 million gallons of water into the lake in 2009, 6.5 million gallons in 2010 and 4.1 million gallons in 2011.

That's more gallons per square feet than any other park use, including ballfields, according to a city report.

"The three-year pilot program has shown that a constant lake surface area can be maintained and that water quality can be improved by adding potable water," the report said. "However, this constant lake surface cannot be maintained without the addition of significantly more water than is allocated for other parks facilities with similar service areas and use, which is contrary to the department's long-term sustainability goals."

The city has other manmade lakes, including Viele Lake in Harlow Platts Park in south Boulder and Wonderland Lake in Foothills Community Park in north Boulder, but those lakes lie in natural drainage areas closer to the mountains and don't require any additional water.

Kincannon said the parks department is working with the University of Colorado and consultants to develop a plan for the area that would be aesthetically pleasing and environmentally sustainable as intermittent wetlands, rather than a lake.

Even with the replenishment, the water level remains far below historic levels.

Charles Howe, who serves on the city's Water Resources Advisory Board and lives in Frasier Meadows, said the lake, even in its diminished state, remains important to the neighborhood and to the neighboring school, Horizons K-8.

"The thing now is to maintain the lake in its current state," he said. "It's got a healthy ecosystem. It's got rich bird life. It's got potential for education."

Arthur said the city's water utility can continue to serve Thunderbird Lake if that's what the City Council and the community want.

"Our water system serves a variety of recreational uses in the community," he said. "Thunderbird Lake certainly is a little unique, but we irrigate parks, we fill swimming pools, so if this is a priority for the community, then it's not different than other facilities in that regard."

Howe said the lake is no more a waste of water than any other parks use.

"It takes no more water to keep that lake full than it does to irrigate two acres of grass or ballfields, and it's much more intensively used," Howe said. "You don't even have to mow it. It's nonsense to say it's wasting water. If this is wasting water, then shut down the golf courses first."

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story